Read Online Love You Better by Natalie K Martin - Free Book Online Page A

building, policies and processes, all while she’d tried not to re-familiarise herself with his smell, the way he ran his fingers through his hair, or the way the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled.
    She’d been getting on with her life until he’d come back, and now it felt like it was spiralling out of control. As far as she was concerned, her anger at him was wholly justified. What she didn’t understand was why the idea of him being in Ireland made her skin ripple in a way that was disturbingly on the border of being pleasurable.
    From the day she’d met Oliver, she’d never looked back. He’d showered her with flowers and gifts and taken her on thoughtful dates. And when he’d knelt on the scuffed lino floor of her kitchen, offering her a ring a month later, she hadn’t hesitated in saying yes. So why was she looking back now?
    She shook her head again. She wasn’t looking back – that was wrong. She was being pulled back, and she didn’t want to be. She had a good life with Oliver, and everything had been moving along quite nicely until Smith had shown up with that bloody face of his.
    The lead-up to Christmas was turning out to be much more fraught than she wanted it to be. Her mum’s parting words hadn’t helped either, and, as predicted, she hadn’t heard a peep from her since. It was probably for the best anyway. Her mum and Smith were too negative, and she didn’t want that around her – not now that she had Oliver. He was everything her mum and Smith weren’t. He considered her all the time, picking her up and dropping her off and cooking her dinner whenever he got home from work early enough. Even his offer of an allowance seemed to come from a good place, however uncomfortable it made her feel. Being with him made her feel secure and calm. It made her feel like an adult, whereas being around her mum and Smith made her regress to a sulky teenager who knew nothing about the world or what relationships meant. With Oliver, she was learning all the time, and regardless of what Penny and Smith thought, she was one hundred per cent sure she’d made the right decision to marry him.
    ‘One hundred and ten per cent,’ Effie said aloud.
    The woman sitting next to her turned and looked at her. ‘ I’m sorr y?’
    Effie blushed. ‘Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud.’
    The woman smiled tightly and turned herself away a fraction , moving the Gucci and Karen Millen bags sat next to her legs with her . Effie twisted the platinum wedding ring on her finger. Oliver was her husband. He didn’t deserve to be doubted by the mother-in-law who barely even knew him, and he didn’t deserve to have his wife thinking about someone else, especially when that someone was Smith. She stood up and walked quickly back to Ted Ba ker.

7.
    T hanks, baby, I love it.’ Oliver smiled and kissed her on the mouth. She’d been right to go back to Ted Baker after all. ‘Happy Christmas.’
    Effie smiled as she took the small box from him and unwrapped it. The smile gave way to a grin when she saw the duck-egg blue Tiffany box. The man had taste.
    She picked up the sterling silver bracelet. It would look perfect with her platinum drop earrings, the ones Oliver had bought her when she agreed to move in with him.
    ‘It’s beautiful.’
    ‘Here, let’s put it on.’ He went to undo the clasp of her charm bracelet and Effie frowned.
    ‘I don’t need to take that one off.’ She held her other wrist out towards him. ‘Put it on this one.’
    ‘Baby,’ Oliver said with a lopsided smile. ‘No offence, but you can’t wear a Tiffany bracelet on one hand and that thing on the other.’
    ‘What’s wrong with it?’ She frowned again, looking at the charm bracelet. Okay, so it wasn’t expensive, but she’d had it for years.
    ‘It’s tacky. And the jangling noise it always makes is a little annoying.’
    Effie touched the tiny butterfly charm Smith had bought for her the Christmas before. It sat nicely with the